Through My Lens: Andrea

Andrea is a youth photographer working with Outside the Lens’s Cameras Across Cultures program. This July, Andrea traveled with a small group of North American students and educators for a peacebuilding program and collaborative initiative in partnership with the US Peace Corps in Cartagena, Colombia.

Andrea’s group spent a week traveling to coastal cities to collaborate and connect with local youth on three photographic projects that leveraged imagery as a tool to explore the interconnected themes of of peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Here Andrea shares one of those images, a photo taken in San José del Peñon, Colombia, that captures the feet of dancers from a small village who welcomed our students with traditions native to Colombia.

What caught your eye when taking this image?

What caught my eye was the soft color of the dresses that seem to resonate with the land underfoot.

What was the story behind how you captured it?

The dancers had been barefoot, and I was left with the impression of an analogy: we are one with the land we set our feet upon.

What does this image mean to you?

By the looking at the photo itself, the location or the identity of the subjects of the photo is indefinite; therefore implying that the meaning of the photo isn’t attached to a specific people. That regardless of anything materialistic, I leave a direct impression on the environment (the place, the people; wherever that may be), the same way it leaves an impression on me.

What do you want your audience to feel or understand when they look at your work?

This photo is just meant to inspire curiosity.

What does it feel like to show you work to others?

It feels good to share the way the world looks to me through a lens, since everyone can look at the world a differently. Thereafter, to allow conversation to spark about the way we perceive the world outside the lens.

How has working with Outside the Lens impacted you?

I had the chance to meet and work with Colombian students, many of which I still keep in contact with. Together we discussed the meaning and the mechanics of peace, meanwhile defining it through collections of photos. It makes you realize how connected, people living miles away, truly are.

How does the world look to you when you look through the viewfinder?

Even though the viewfinder can only capture only so much of the world in one frame, it helps focus the world on one single moment, on only one photo as a masterpiece of details that weave together as one to make it your own.